Thomas Daschle: “I appreciate the question posed by the Senator from Michigan. This whole experience has turned logic on its head. We…”

“I appreciate the question posed by the Senator from Michigan. This whole experience has turned logic on its head. We have 220,000 troops in the gulf. We are told that there is almost an inevitability of war. We are told that the reason for this near inevitability is because of weapons of mass destruction that we have yet to find in Iraq and because of an unstable leader in Iraq. These assertions have required the administration to go to great lengths to try to prove that their findings are ones that could be recognized by the world community. With all of their best effort, they have yet to demonstrate to the satisfaction of some of our allies that the threat exists to the extent the administration perceives it, and yet there is a clear set of circumstances that are undeniable in North Korea. There is a very questionable leader spurring development of nuclear weapons in the most rapid way, which we know could be sold quickly to terrorist organizations and used against us and the world community. Yet this administration chooses to ignore it. The Senator asks the question, why would we not engage the community and recognize the importance of confronting North Korea? The administration says the answer to that is they do not want to reward bad behavior. I argue that we are rewarding bad behavior by ignoring the circumstances as this administration has chosen to do. What could be worse behavior than what is going on right now?”